Lyubena|Pictures

My name is Lyubena, pronounced [lü:bena], but everyone just calls me Lyu [lü:].
In the past five years, my husband (a wonderful Italian man) and I have lived in Budapest, Milan, Paris and since we February 2017 we reside in East Bay, California.
We have the great happiness to be traveling for both work and leisure. One of my favourite things while traveling is photographing, meeting great new people and collecting urban legends. This blog is all about this.

Two years in Milan slipped out unnoticed and I realised that I have never visited any place in Piedmont. Since recently we were always back and forth between Paris and Milan before the big move in two weeks, it was quite difficult to organise an […]

On the contrary with the seasonal Best of the year summaries appearing all around in the last hours of the year I am listing my pleasures for the month. Apartment in Paris Found. It took time and emotional investment to research apartments in 15e and […]

If someone had told me several years ago that by the end of 2014 we would be on the way to move to Paris I would have been sceptical. But c’est la vie and here I am hunting an apartment to turn in our lovenest […]

I have always been fascinated with languages lessons. For the simple pleasure of acquisition of laborious grammatical construction. For the plain lexical satisfaction. Like a toddler, praised by its parents for the first correct sentence I feel utterly fulfilled by being able to say Alors, […]

September list of Pleasures City of Thieves by David Benioff I spent a week leafing trough the adventures of the half-Jew Lev and the young soldier Kolya on the way to accomplishing their secret mission: to find a dozen of eggs in time of war. […]

After two years of sweet family life Rob and I decided it’s a high time to make our belated honeymoon come true. Curiosity for Southeast Asia and love for spicy food shifted the needle of our compass towards the distant lands of Bali and after […]

Dear San Francisco, Perhaps you are now still under the blankets of your bed overlooking the beautiful morning cityscape captured in the frame of your window, or you are already having a cup of your long brewed coffee, planning to meet some friends for brunch […]

An exact 3-hour journey by train brought me to Bern. The road was meandering between hills, lake shores, the pages of my book and several words exchanged with the traveler adjacent to me. I had a blue sky day ahead and a lovely scenery to […]

My great-grandfather ran a caravanserai, an inn, where traders and pedlars used to lodge when coming in town on market days. Accommodation and warm food were provided not only for their owners, but also for the horses in some nicely organised stables. The place was […]

Courtyards always used to be attractive to me. To sneak in the lit up by the sun inner ground, to smell the mysterious aroma mixture of: a) onion and tomato dish that is being prepared for lunch b) the mould from the dark humid walls […]

Sunday afternoon finds me on a bench in Giardino della Guastala, facing the colourful building of the Synagogue. Life is good. Children, generously covered with sticky ice-cream stains are playing in the sight of their talkative parents. Young lady in jeans is walking a chocolate […]

Crystal clear blue sky with occasional cotton-white clouds, long days and atmosphere of an approaching national holiday welcomed us in the city of Barcelona. Hundreds of words are written and said about the natural, architectural or gastronomical wonders of the Catalan capital. So, one is […]